


Flora

by tincturesofamusement (orphan_account)



Series: Dreamer Errant [2]
Category: The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon
Genre: (as of TSR), Canon Compliant, Dreamwalking, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tincturesofamusement
Summary: -Paige makes an intriguing new acquaintance in Paris, but she hasn’t quite succeeded in reining in her spirit. (originally published 2019-09-24)
Relationships: Paige Mahoney/Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim
Series: Dreamer Errant [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708393
Kudos: 5





	Flora

I stayed there, on the rooftop, the rest of the night. I might have dozed a few times, but I tried to keep myself awake, pressing my hands into the gravel on the cement. Now that Warden was gone, I was suddenly becoming aware of the risks I was taking - that I _couldn’t be trusted alone_ , like he’d said.  
  
And still I didn’t understand why. The drugs from the Archon had been meant to suppress my spirit, yes, but that was no reason for this new craving for aether. I wasn’t used to not being able to control my own gift. If I were being honest with myself, the person most likely to understand the problem would be Warden, but I would almost rather try dreamwalking again than go to him now.  
  
Above me, the sky was edging towards gray. I got to my feet cautiously - sitting up on a hard surface all night hadn’t exactly done wonders for my body - and descended to the street.  
  
Blanched walls and shuttered windows greeted me, enclosing the narrow lane. It was hardly more than an alley, the sort of place I might have wandered through with Nick before all of this. The building I’d been confined to since arriving in Paris loomed several stories above me, a pale diagram of windows and aging coats of paint.  
  
Animated clamor floated from down the block. There was an array of shops along the waterfront, bustling with cheerful amaurotics. I realized that I didn’t even know which day of the week it was - being a Rephaite, Warden hadn’t seen fit to mention the passage of time, and I’d lost track long ago - but it looked to be the weekend from the preponderance of patrons.  
  
I glanced at the windows of the buildings as I passed, catching glimpses of their wares, but I was engaged with watching the swirl of people passing by. Nearly all of them lacked an aura, and from what I could understand of their French conversations, they were dutifully ignorant Scion denizens.  
  
As I reached the end of the block, I found a tiny cookshop tucked into the street corner. I also found that I was hungry from a night of worrying myself awake. I had a suspicion that, if I were to return to the little flat, Warden would have left me something, but for the moment I had no money.  
  
Occupied with examining my surroundings, I’d slowed down, and I staggered as a balding man shoved past me. He turned and gave me an ill-humored smile.  
  
_“Regardez où vous allez, nana.”_  
  
I hadn’t spoken French in about two years, and although I’d been fluent by the time I left school, I couldn’t gather enough of my wits - or vocabulary - to respond. Before I could do more than cast the man a foul look, an arm slipped through mine.  
  
_“Voyons, monsieur, nous sommes tous amis ici. Laissez la femme tranquille.”_ My rescuer had an easy, drawling voice. She turned us away and led me to the railing above the Seine, where it was marginally less populous, then looked up - I was nearly a foot taller - and studied me. I met her gaze steadily.  
  
She must have been around sixty. Her hair was the gray of deep water on a cloudy day, falling straight down her back. The corners of her mouth were pulled up in an arch smile, embellished by two roguish brown eyes. I nearly smiled myself. It was rare to see such a breezily careless expression on the face of anyone who’d spent their life under Scion’s rule. Instead, I raised an eyebrow, coolly staring her out.  
  
“Not even a _merci_ for me, rose?” Her speech was tinged with the slightest accent.  
  
“Maybe I was about to pick his pocket and you interrupted.”  
  
“I suppose I wouldn’t put it past you. You look like you’re in need of some money,” she shot back. “Have you ever been in France before?”  
  
I shook my head. “I’m here studying. I’m from -”  
  
“London?”  
  
It was my instinct to trust her, to tell her where I really came from, but there was no need to take a risk. I’d only met her a few seconds ago. “London as of late, anyway.”  
  
“I thought so.” Her eyebrows drifted upwards. “We get visitors from there occasionally. But they’re not always as...” Her fingers swirled in my direction, gesturing to an unseen energy around my body. “As _vibrant_.”  
  
I stilled.  
  
_“Suivez-moi, ma rose. Laissez-moi vous prendre un verre.”_

\-----

My eyes drove into her back as she elbowed her way down a side street. I could tell, now I wasn’t blindly trusting the utter innocence of humanity and not paying attention, that she had the temperate aura of a sensor. Following this stranger into some Parisian alleyway was one of the less reasonable things I’d done today, but I was coming to realize that I didn’t have much of a choice. It was far too risky to try and overpower her physically - anyone with the least idea of how to fight would have an easy time with me - and I would not willingly put my spirit into the aether again.  
  
Besides, I wanted to hear what she had to say. Asking me for a drink wasn’t what I might expect from a voyant in Scion’s employ, and if I wasn’t quite ready to trust, I at least had interest in this slight, wiry woman.  
  
She led me to a bright storefront with an abundance of glass windows. Inside, the room was filled with stands displaying data pads in a myriad of different colors. Booths lined the walls, most of them occupied by several people. I took a second look at the nearest one and saw that the three men laughing over the table were tapping on it, playing a game on the screen that formed the surface.  
  
“Do you always get your drinks from an electronics store?” I muttered to her.  
  
“Where else?” She sauntered into a booth and started pressing buttons on the table. A maze popped up with numbers in the corners, which she rapped at a few times in no particular place. “Sit down, rose, people will stare.”  
  
I lowered myself onto the bench opposite her. She grinned at me conspiratorially before reaching into a recess in the wall and drawing out two emerald cans. I examined the wall, which had a hollow opening concealed by a sliding wood panel.  
  
“My name is Iris,” she declared. “I was born on the last day of the last millennium and I’m planning to die on the first day of the next century. I have two pieces of advice for you: one, make sure you have a worthwhile purpose in your life, and two, always sit in this table because it’s the only one with drinks.”  
  
I snapped a can open, not breaking her gaze. “I’ll keep those in mind.” Iris winked and tapped at the maze again. The wall panel slid closed. “Happy birthday.”  
  
“Oh, _merci_ ,” she said. “Now then. Are you going to give me your name?”  
  
“Flora Blake.”  
  
She leaned back and sipped from the can. “That was a yes or no question.”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
Iris sighed dramatically and shrugged. “The _péti_ ’s not poisonous, you know.”  
  
“ _Péti_?” The letters were indeed printed across the front of the can, in a silver script that swirled like tinsel.  
  
“I don’t know the translation. Try it.”  
  
I raised the can to my lips and sampled the contents. My throat closed up immediately - not from the liquid, but its texture. It felt like water had been turned to sparks inside my mouth. Iris nearly succeeded in hiding her smile. After I’d forced myself to swallow, the stinging feeling faded, leaving a mild orange flavor.  
  
“I know, it’s delicious,” she said. “Glad you agree.”  
  
I gave her a sharp look but tried the drink again after a moment. It was surprisingly sweet.  
  
“So, Iris, do you live in Paris?”  
  
“Usually.”  
  
“Work for the government?”  
  
She fluttered her eyelashes. “I work for _a_ government. Inconsistent pay, a few corrupt officers, questionable benefits.”  
  
There was no way she would say that to me if she weren’t in the syndicate. A syndicate. Whatever net of tangled alliances was spread between the clairvoyants of Paris. Even from just her aura and her invitation, it was clear Iris had connections. I studied her, trying to decide how to respond.  
  
“Sounds like it might be interesting,” I said. “I had a friend back home who worked at the - uh - Greek embassy.” I was fairly sure that I did, in fact, have an acquaintance who later went on to do just that, not that I’d had the slightest contact with her in the last five years. “She always had news from what was happening abroad.”  
  
“Lucky for her,” said Iris after a beat. “I only get drips of gossip from outside _la France_. And not even from the civilization under our glorious anchor.”  
  
I stared her out.  
  
A smile quirked her lips. “And you see why. Nothing to hear from you closemouthed Londoners. Can’t even get them to discuss illegal trading of -”  
  
“Grand-mère!”  
  
We looked up. A boy stood peeking around the corner of the booth. He had some of Iris’ vivacity in his features, but his eyes were wide and dark as he looked me over and his hair was wound in close curls. Abruptly, he faced Iris again and began chattering in French.  
  
_“Grand-mère, t’as pas compris, il voulait dire le cinéma et maintenant il me faudra y aller tout seul - ne dis pas que c’est encore mon travail -”_  
  
_“Bien sûr que non._ Flora, it was nice meeting you.” She tapped the maze on the screen again and slid her can into the wall panel. “I’m being unavoidably called away, as you see. But the péti will be here tomorrow if you liked it.” With another wink, she took the boy’s arm and disappeared out the door, her hair tossing down her back.  
  
I drained the rest of my can, setting it beside hers in the wall panel, and got up. They’d turned left out of the store into a mosaic of apartment buildings. I pulled my hood down and followed.  
  
The streets had grown busier as the morning drew on. Tempting as it might have been to study the Parisians passing me by, it was still second nature to hide my face in shadow. Eyes averted, close movements, using my other senses to gather information. And, of course, silence. Silence was what truly allowed me to go unnoticed.  
  
Silence was what made Suhail get bored.  
  
I shook myself out of it and focused on Iris and her charge - not a moment too late. Their figures whisked around a corner nearly a block in front of me, jolting me into a faster walk. When I reached the corner, which was embellished with a banner still proclaiming the New Year’s Jubilee, a dead-end street greeted me. There was nowhere for them to have gone; only closed windows, a few with disheveled flowerpots perched outside, broke the canvases of the apartment walls.  
  
I looked up. Faded lettering was painted on one of the walls, shaping an illegible word, but otherwise there was no sign of anything other than the columns of window frames. And no sign of Iris.  
  
My vision flickered, switching momentarily to the darkness of the aether. I snatched at the knife in my jacket and spun to face an attacker, but no other dreamscapes were nearby. The aether remained perceptible. My sixth sense was in hyperdrive, tugging at my spirit to leave my bones.  
  
I folded to the ground, narrowly missing the edge of a flowerpot, and forced my nails into my temple. Nothing happened. I barely felt the effect at all. Red poppy anemone flowers floated into view instead. Petals brushed against my forehead. My silver cord strained, pulling my spirit away from my dreamscape. A keening sound finally reached my ears as I concentrated on what little I could feel of the world around me. But it wasn’t working. I was about to dreamwalk again, and I didn’t know if I could come back.  
  
Then an aura moved close, merging with my own. Distantly I heard words being spoken, but their meaning dissolved into the scarlet of the flowers. A hand took mine. The poppies ebbed away just slightly and shades of charcoal, of ashen ivory, of honey-gold, mingled before me.  
  
“Look at me, little dreamer.”  
  
I couldn’t look. I could barely see. Fingers curled under my jaw, lifting my face, and my eyelids finally rose. Warden’s features, softened in the brush of sunlight, came into focus. We were both motionless; his hands were twined against my skin, warm next to the raw chill of the wind.  
  
“Dreamer -”  
  
I shook my head in a tiny motion. It still felt as though I were a ghost in my own flesh, a pale specter clothed in white aster and a bloodred crown.  
  
Warden lifted my hand and touched his lips to it without breaking my gaze. A flame adorned the poppy anemones in my dreamscape, stilling the turmoil in my mind. He raised me to my feet and stepped back as if nothing had happened.  
  
The feeling of his kiss lingered on my knuckles. I pushed my hands into the pockets of my jacket and waited.  
  
“You had a right to request my absence,” he said. “I should never have addressed you in the manner I did. And it has been made more than clear that any decision of your safety is not mine to make.”  
  
A gun lined at his chest. The gleam of a necklace in the air. My shoulders dropped. “But?”  
  
“That is all I have to say to you -”  
  
“Warden, don’t talk to me like I’m a criminal. Please. I’m sorry I sent you away, and I’m sorry I can’t...” I trailed off as his eyes kindled. _I’m sorry I can’t even be clairvoyant the way I’m supposed to. I’m sorry I can’t keep my spirit where it belongs._ His indifference was almost as suffocating as dreamwalking.  
  
“That,” he repeated, very quietly, “is all I have to say to you while respecting our agreement. As only a representative of the Ranthen, there is no argument I can make against the command you gave me last night.”  
  
“Oh.” So he wasn’t that indifferent. The golden cord pulsed slightly, like a heartbeat, and I felt my cheeks grow hot. As my gaze fell on a window across the alley, it occurred to me what I’d been doing here in the first place. “Did you see anyone else around here? A woman and a young boy?”  
  
He shook his head. “To whom do you refer?”  
  
“You know, I’m not quite sure of that myself,” I said. I turned to the street. “It’s frigid out here. I’ll tell you inside.”  
  
“You will attract less attention to walk alone,” he said. “I will meet you at the safe house.”  
  
“Right.” After a pause, I added, “Thank you. Again.”  
  
“Of course,” he said. The daylight skimmed away some of the luster of his skin, making his face seem human but for his eyes. “Paige, you must believe that it is within your power to overcome this. I will always be here when you have need, but you will regain command of your own gift.”  
  
“Well, I certainly hope so,” I replied. “I much prefer that idea to death.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
